Method for routing electronic correspondence based on the level and type of emotion contained therein

ABSTRACT

A system, method, and computer program product for determining the emotional content of an electronic correspondence to route or prioritize the information, to set the expectations of a customer support worker, to flag those workers who are using inappropriate language with the customer, or determine another best course to send the correspondence. In a preferred embodiment, a customer sends an electronic correspondence to a company via email. Emotionally charged words or symbols in each sentence are detected. The message is then given an emotional ranking which is used to determine what future action is most appropriate for the correspondence.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

[0001] This application claims priority to U.S. Serial No. 60/327,988,filed Oct. 9, 2001, which is fully incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND ART

[0002] This invention relates to a variety of problems including theinefficient routing of electronic correspondence, including electronicmail (email), sent from customers to a company.

[0003] Email has developed into a convenient medium for customers toprovide feedback of a company's products and/or services. Customers areoften more candid in their assessment of a company's products andservices when spared a physical or even oral confrontation with acompany representative. Large business entities are commonly inundatedwith either solicited or unsolicited Email feedback. Adequately andefficiently processing this massive amount of data has typically been atime intensive and expensive process. An automatic way of routing emailbased on its emotional content would ease the burden on the company.

[0004] A company must employ some means to route its customers'electronic correspondence to appropriate personnel. A company may createa department to read each piece of email to determine the best route ofthe message, whether that be a customer service representative (CSR), aCSR's supervisor, a public relations representative, normal routing, orother appropriate path. The time associated with physically reading eachemail compounded by the expense of maintaining the department makes acompany less nimble and responsive to consumer demands.

[0005] In another variation, customer e-mails can be summarized based onkeywords. The summaries reduce the amount of words that must be read,however the process is not automatic and important words can be left outof the summary. Having to read even the summaries is not the optimal useof a department's resources.

[0006] Vendors often rely on observing the physical demeanor of acustomer to determine who is the best person to handle the situation. Ifa company receives a phone call from a disgruntled customer who speaksloudly and forcefully, that customer may be transferred directly to aCSR's supervisor to more adequately address his/her important concern.Stripped of this emotional gauge, a company must allocate substantialresources to route customer concerns.

[0007] Some Vendors have developed applications that classify documentsbased on their content. Eudora 5.1's Moodwatch.TM. (MoodWatch) createdby Qualcomm Incorporated, a Delaware corporation, is one suchapplication. MoodWatch is a new language tool that acts as an emotionmonitor for email that flags aggressive language and calls it to theauthor's attention. MoodWatch can detect aggressive, demeaning or rudelanguage in the email which are sent and received by looking at bothindividual words and complete phrases. However, MoodWatch is used onlyto warn or alert a person of potentially offensive messages. It makes nodecisions based on its alerts and also does not gauge positivemessaging.

[0008] In summary, the prior art provides means to manually read emailthen manually determine the best person or department to act on theemail. Means also exist to electronically gauge the offensiveness ofemail content. This art can be improved by a system that gauges bothpositive and negative emotion within email and then using thatdetermination to automatically route the email message to an appropriatecompany representative. Workflow routing based on the detected emotionenables a company to provide a high level of service to its customers ina more cost efficient and less time intensive manner.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0009] The foregoing problems are overcome in an illustrative embodimentof the invention in a customer service department of a company thatemploys electronic correspondence, including email, to receive customerfeedback.

[0010] In one aspect of the invention, both positive and negativeemotion are determined in a customer's incoming email. This process islanguage independent. First, speech tagging designates each word as anadjective, noun, verb, adverb, etceteras. Simultaneously, each word isreferenced against a lookup table to determine a corresponding emotiondegree value.

[0011] In another aspect of the invention, a language parser identifiesnoun phrases and verb phrases and other relevant features of thelanguage. Finally, a fuzzy logic mapper applies transformation rules toassign a mapped rating from negative 3 to positive 3 to the emailmessage.

[0012] In another aspect of the present invention, the mapped rating isused to determine what future actions are most appropriate for thecorrespondence. These actions include, but are not limited to, setting apriority on the message, ignoring the message, or completing some otheraction on the text such as sending the text to a designated person,changing some associated information, or generating an automaticresponse to the sender. Finally, reports can be generated based on theratings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

[0013] The present invention is described in detail below with referenceto the attached drawing figures, wherein:

[0014]FIG. 1 depicts the overall architecture of an embodiment of thepresent invention comprising a customer's computer and a company'sservers connected via a data network;

[0015]FIGS. 2a and 2 b are a flow chart depicting operation of anembodiment of the present invention; and

[0016]FIG. 3 is an overview of the component parts of an embodiment ofthe present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0017] The present invention provides a method and system for routingelectronic correspondence based on the emotion content of thecorrespondence.

[0018] For illustrative purposes, an embodiment of the present inventionis discussed below with reference to a company customer supportdepartment that accepts email as a means of customer communication. Thisis only one example of a suitable environment and is not intended tosuggest any limitation as to the scope of use or functionality of theinvention. Neither should it be interpreted as having any dependency orrequirement relating to any one or a combination of componentsillustrated in the exemplary operating environment.

[0019] Referring to the drawings, FIG. 1 illustrates one embodiment ofthe invention. A company receives and transmits customer electroniccorrespondence including email from an email server 110 via a datanetwork 105 connected to a customer's computer 100. In a preferredembodiment, the data network 105 can be the Internet. Electroniccorrespondence contemplates but is not limited to email, chat andweb-based forms. The email server 10 is merely one of a myriad means acompany may employ to send and receive email. The email server 110 maybe individual workstations or a network of servers. Electroniccorrespondence received from a client computer 100 via the Internet 105initiates the process of the present invention. The process of thepresent invention is illustrated and described with reference to FIGS.2a and 2 b.

[0020] As shown, an e-mail message with unstructured text is received atstep 200. At step 203, the processing of the e-mail message begins.Initially, each word in the email message is tagged with itscorresponding part-of-speech. The part-of-speech tagger assigns tagssuch as noun verb, adjective, adverb, etc., to each word of the emailmessage. Next, a language parser identifies noun phrases and verbphrases along with other relevant features of the language at step 204.The parser ensures that phrases such as “not happy” carry the samemeaning as the word “unhappy.” Negation operators such as “not” areprevented from mistakenly labeling irate customers as those that arequite pleased.

[0021] Next, individual words and word-phrases are referenced (step 212)against a lookup table at step 212. The referenced information is usedto assign an emotion value to the individual words and word-phrases atstep 215. Symbols within a message can also be given emotion values. Forexample, emoticons which are punctuation strings such as :-) to denotehappiness and :-( to denote sadness can be assigned an emotion value. Inother words, emoticons are symbols that the system may use also todetermine an overall emotional ranking at step 224. Modifier words suchas “very” are also identified as part of the process, at step 218.

[0022] Further, capitalization, punctuation, and other features aredetected at step 221. In a preferred embodiment, words that are allcapitalized can signify yelling. Serial exclamation points can signify aforceful tone. Thus the system can recognize the difference in degree ofemotion between someone writing, “I am not very happy,” and “I am NOTVERY HAPPY!!!”

[0023] A series of transformation rules are applied at step 222 to thee-mail message contents. The transformation rules can include suchthings as associating a word and rating with the action of assigning amessage to a particular individual. Conversely transformation rulesinvolve the conversion of a word value from a scale of −100 to 100 to ascale of −3 to +3. In order to reduce non-linearity in ratings and toeasily convey information to a user. A mapped emotional ranking isassigned at step 224 to the message using a fuzzy logic mapper. Forcalculation purposes, a scale of between negative one hundred andpositive one hundred can be used or any derivative thereof. But is thenmapped to emotional rankings in the range from negative three topositive three. This makes graphically depicting relevant emotionalinformation easier by having only seven levels of satisfaction tovisually display. The fuzzy logic mapper can be used to account for anon-linear rating scale. For instance, if the marginal dissatisfactionfrom negative ninety to negative one hundred is greater than themarginal dissatisfaction from zero to negative ten, the fuzzy logicmapper will properly map the larger values to smaller values andaccurately assign an emotional ranking at step 224 to the message. Theworkflow processing begins at step 227.

[0024] Workflow processing is the process whereby the route of theelectronic correspondence is determined based on the emotional metricsdescribed above. Emotional content of the electronic correspondence isused to route or prioritize the information, to set the expectations ofa customer support worker, to flag those workers who are usinginappropriate language with the customer, or determine an alternate bestcourse for the correspondence.

[0025] Initially, a determination is made whether to assign a newpriority status at step 230; whether to assign new ownership step 233 toany one of the individuals within a company. An example of suchindividuals is illustrated in FIG. 1, such as a customer servicerepresentative 120, supervisor 115, manager 125, or any otherappropriate individual 130. Other options include whether to assign anew service level at step 236; or whether to assign secondaryinformation to the message at step 239. Next, a confirmation can be sentat step 242 to the user which may be prior to or in addition to asending an auto-response at step 245. A determination is made on whetheror not to notify a manager, at step 247. Following workflow processing,the message can be deleted as shown at step 250 or preserved at step 253for future reference. The outcome of all of the message processing andworkflow processing that has been discussed thus far can be stored forlater retrieval. This function is illustrated at step 256, wherein datacan be logged for further report generation.

[0026] An array of information can be gathered, stored, and processed toprovide business with data to base improvements. One key datum, is thefinal emotional ranking assigned to a message or closed case. A case maybe a series of correspondence from the customer to the company regardinga particular issue. However, the order in which the messages arereceived is important. The system and method of the present inventioncan account for the temporal sequence of messages. That is, the mostrecent email from a customer is treated as a better indicator of his/herlevel of satisfaction than a prior message.

[0027] For example, a user's initial message may open a case and beassigned an emotional ranking of negative ten. After a customer supportrepresentative (CSR) answers the question, the customer may send aresponse which receives a ranking of positive fifty. The system couldemploy a time scale weighted average that would weight the more recentpositive fifty more than the earlier negative ten, along with theaforementioned factors, to produce an overall satisfaction ranking thatis in close accord to the customer's current frame of mind.

[0028] Many other metrics can be gathered including the overall languageusage of the company's customer support representatives, historicalpleased resolution rate, and historical degree of customer satisfaction.This data is stored and able to be recalled for generating reports.Finally, some other external action can be performed on the message asshown at step 259.

[0029] The present invention comprises multiple components and functionswhich have been described with reference to FIGS. 1, 2a and 2 b. A blockdiagram illustration of an embodiment of the present invention isfurther presented in FIG. 3 and generally referenced as routing system300.

[0030] Routing system 300 illustrates and groups in a pictorial manner,the functions, features and procesesses that are involved with thesystem and method of the present invention. Generally, at a high level,unstructured text 302 is piped into a document processing system 304,which then provides an output 318 for human action.

[0031] Document processing system 304 provides the functions describedearlier with respect to FIG. 2, it comprises a feature detectioncomponent 306 and a document manipulation component 312. The textfeature detection component 306 includes both an emotion detectioncomponent 308 and an other features detection component 310. Inpractice, the emotion detection component 308 performs identification ofkey items (words and emoticons), word modifiers and punctuation orcapitalization within a message.

[0032] Document manipulation component 312 includes an other documentprocessing component 316 for processing system actions, it also includesas a workflow processing component 314. The workflow component 314incorporates processing such as changing the priority or status for agiven message, changing ownership, service level or other secondaryinformation pertaining to the message. In addition, work flow processingincludes other types of processing such as those relating toconfirmations and the automated response to messages. Other features andaspects of the present invention that relate to external actions such asnotification of a manger or deletion of a document, can also beconsidered a part of workflow processing. In other words, all workflowrules and escalation rules associated with the present invention areprovided by the workflow processing component 314.

[0033] The culmination of all non automated functions performed by thedocument processing system 304, is the provision of information foraction by a human user. This function is illustrated as human action318. For example, when a message is deemed by the document processingsystem 304 to be from an unhappy customer, the message is routed to anappropriate customer support representative for their action, or themessage is flagged to mentally prepare the recipient prior to acting onthe message.

[0034] While the invention has been described with reference to theexemplary embodiments thereof, those skilled in the art will be able tomake various modifications to the described embodiments of the inventionwithout departing from the true spirit and scope of the invention. Theterms and descriptions used herein are set forth by way of illustrationonly and are not meant as limitations. In particular, although themethod of the present invention has been described by examples, thesteps of the method may be performed in a different order thanillustrated or simultaneously. Those skilled in the art will recognizethat these and other variations are possible within the spirit and scopeof the invention as defined in the following claims and theirequivalents.

What the invention claimed is:
 1. A method for routing an incomingelectronic correspondence based on an emotional content of thecorrespondence, said method comprising the steps of: receiving theelectronic correspondence, the electronic correspondence containing oneor more words or symbols; assigning an emotional ranking to theelectronic correspondence; and routing the electronic correspondence fora further action based on said emotional ranking.
 2. The method of claim1, wherein said step of assigning an emotional ranking includes adetermination of emotional ranking, said determination of emotionalranking comprising the steps of: assigning said one or more words orsymbols an emotion value; tagging said one or more words of theelectronic correspondence with their respective parts-of-speech, parsingthe electronic correspondence into noun phrases and verb phrases; andapplying transformation rules to the electronic correspondence toproduce the emotional ranking.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein saidfurther action comprises: routing the electronic correspondence to anappropriate company representative based on said emotional ranking;prioritizing the electronic correspondence; setting the expectations ofone or more customer support representatives; flagging said one or morecustomer representatives who are using inappropriate language with saidcustomer; and determining another best course to send the electroniccorrespondence.
 4. The method of claim 1, further comprising the stepsof: storing said emotional rankings; performing mathematicalcalculations on said emotional rankings to generate statistics; andgenerating reports based on said statistics.
 5. The method of claim 1wherein said emotional ranking is conveyed in a numeric range.
 6. Themethod of claim 2 wherein said emotion value is in a range that spansfrom a negative value to a positive value.
 7. The method of claim 2wherein said emotion value is reflective of both positive and negativeemotions.
 8. A method in a computing environment for routing anelectronic correspondence based on the level and type of informationcontained within the electronic correspondence, the method comprising:parsing the electronic correspondence; assigning one or more values toportions of the electronic correspondence; utilizing said one or morevalues to provide an emotional ranking for the electronic correspondence9. A method as recited in claim 7 further comprising utilizing saidemotional ranking to prioritize the electronic correspondence.
 10. Amethod as recited in claim 7 further comprising routing the electroniccorrespondence as a result of said emotional ranking.
 11. A method asrecited in claim 7 wherein said emotional ranking is derived by a fuzzylogic reduction process, which reduces the non-linearity of individualword ratings and simplifies the conveyance of information to a user. 12.A method as recited in claim 7 further comprising providing atime-scaled weighting average of a plurality of emotional ranking valuesof the electronic correspondence, to more accurately reflect recentemotions of the originator of the electronic correspondence.
 13. Acomputer readable medium having computer executable instructions for amethod for routing an incoming electronic correspondence based onemotional content of the correspondence, the method comprising the stepsof: receiving the electronic correspondence from a customer containingone or more words or symbols; assigning an emotional ranking to theelectronic correspondence; and routing for a further action based onsaid emotional ranking.